Car Hijacker Sentenced

Vehicle Owner's Son Aided Arrest

Some detective work by Scott Schleicher, a young East Hartford resident whose parents' car was stolen from him, landed 19-year-old Roderick Edwards in prison Friday.

An East Hartford police report credited Schleicher with some alert investigative work after the car was hijacked by Edwards and another man from the 7-Eleven Store, 298 Main St., East Hartford, about 10:30 p.m. last June 13.

Schleicher reported that three young men approached him and three friends in the parking lot and exclaimed: `Run your pockets! Give us your cell phones!'

When Schleicher and his friends refused to give the three threatening youths anything, said police, one, later identified as Edwards, walked to the driver's side of the car. He tried to wrestle the car keys away from Schleicher. When Edwards then told Schleicher, ``Don't let me pull out the burner' -- slang for a gun -- Schleicher said he gave up the keys and the second suspect drove off with Edwards as a passenger, police said.

Schleicher immediately called police to report the stolen vehicle. Later, police said, Schleicher leafed through an East Hartford High School yearbook and found a photo of Edwards' brother, allowing him to identify Edwards. A day after the robbery, said police, they found the stolen car abandoned at the Hockanum School in East Hartford.

There, police said, they met with Schleicher and his father, and the young man identified Edwards as the robber from a photo. A week later, said police, Edwards surrendered to police and identified Jeremy ``Bones'' Butler, 20 of 16 Sunnydale Road, East Hartford, as the driver of the stolen car. Butler is awaiting trial in connection with the incident.

Friday, Edwards was sentenced in Hartford Superior Court to four years in prison. Judge Elliot N. Solomon told Edwards in front of a crowd of visiting high school students that he is lucky to be serving only four years.

The judge said if Edwards hadn't agreed to plead to the first-degree robbery and conspiracy charges, he could have spent a lot more time in prison. It will be even worse for Edwards, said the judge, if he violates the six years of probation he also received -- by committing another crime -- because then he might look back and wonder why he wasted so much of his life behind bars.

Edwards admitted being a drug user, and Solomon said that habit probably helped induce him to commit the robbery.

In a separate case Friday, Solomon sentenced 35-year-old Nate Crawford, formerly of Hartford, to 20 years in prison, suspended after 10 years in prison, and 20 years probation for first-degree sexual assault of a minor and risk of injury to a minor. He pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Hartford between May 1998 and Jan. 12, 2000.